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Poster:
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AltheaRose |
Date:
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January 20, 2013 07:24:29pm |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
I see what you mean. But which IT? That was sort of the point of the different eras I mentioned. While I do think there was an IT that ran through the eras, and it did relate in part to the vibe you picked up at the show, and it would be dishonest to say that part of the appeal of the band wasn't linked to that whole culture/show vibe, I also think that the IT was different in different band eras. Not 100 percent different, but different.
Quick for instance: Your definition of the IT makes it inseperable from the culture. And I actually agree with that. But, well, winter shows in the late 70s in the Midwest definitely didn't start with a call to a (non-existant) hotline, and if there was some kind of lot scene, I sure couldn't tell. OK, some people sold stuff, and there was a raw raggedy hippie vibe to the "scene" (such as it was) that was different from, say, Roxy Music. But it wasn't like the incredible circus of the iconic UberTour Era of the late 80s/early 90s. Which meant the vibe was different. So was the IT also different?
If people can get different ITs and feel they've had The Grateful Dead Experience, then I guess I think, Why can't they also listen to the music without ever seeing a show (and see clips on YouTube, read, see Furthur, etc) and still be able to latch onto IT? Why is their 2012, show-less IT less valid than, say, a 1994 IT? Because the music isn't as loud? I mean, other than that, why?
Maybe one answer would be that, without a show, you can't have a gut feeling for the whole gestalt and tone. Intuiting isn't the same as experiencing. But that's a comment on the nature of time, really. It's a comment on whether a historian/music lover etc could really "get" the art or creative expression of past times.
For instance, can we "get" the movies of the WWII era? Yes and no. If we didn't see them THEN, we don't know what it felt like to ride on that trolley and go to the soda fountain and see the newsreel first about Europe burning and then escape into a world where black and white was modern and Lauren Bacall looked young and hip.
We can read a lot, watch a lot, look at pictures, and try to get flashes of what IT was. You can honestly say that's not IT if IT is about actual experience, which in the final analysis is ineffable and can't be conveyed and is lost as generations are lost.
But the thing about art is that it does preserve a bit of that IT and make it accessable to others who weren't even born at the time. Good art lasts, and it communicates its power -- and even some of its ITness -- over time.
So I think that when we defend the irretrievable IT experienced at a show, we're defending the way that history (cultural history, music history, etc) is invariably partial without personal experience. That's true enough. But if the GD made music that really transcends time, then I think it communicates the IT, too.
Pontificating over :-)
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Poster:
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Skobud |
Date:
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January 21, 2013 05:53:22am |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
I would agree that the music communicates, however I would disagree that it conveys the live experience when reproduced.
Now as far as eras are concerned, I've made no bones about the fact that I am a Touch Head of the highest order. The GD hotline was a HUGE deal to me and my friends in the late 80's and early 90's. Huge. It was not nonexistent, it was freakin' busy 24 hrs a day by the late eighties when I started going. Here's my list:
7/4/86 Rich Stadium
6/30/88 Silver Stadium
4/2/89 Pittsburg Civic Arena
4/8/89 Riverfront Coliseum
4/9/89 Freedom Hall
7/4/89 Rich Stadium
6/14/92 Giants Stadium
6/15/92 Giants Stadium
6/17/92 Charlotte Coliseum
6/18/92 Charlotte Coliseum
6/20/92 RFK
6/22/92 Star Lake Amphitheater
6/23/92 Star Lake Amphitheater
6/25/92 Soldier Field
6/26/92 Soldier Field
7/1/92 Buckeye Lake
6/13/93 Rich Stadium
9/10/93 Richfield Coliseum
9/13/93 The Spectrum
3/20/94 Richfield Coliseum
3/27/94 Nassau Coliseum
6/25/95 RFK
You will see about 95% of the shows I went to see werent exactly the pride of the canon. The experience I had at each one of these shows was unique and no amount of listening or watching can recreate the live experience. Accessibility has nothing to do with it. I find myself repeating the same things over and over here, so maybe I should put it another way.
How did you feel when you watched Jerry play live? "IT" is what I felt.
If you never saw Jerry play live you cannot answer that question, if you did - you GET "IT".
I have to be honest, I have no idea why this concept is so hard for everyone to accept. It's not an insult. It's not a knock on GD appreciation or knowledge. It's a fact.
Althea, how could you truly know any experience without actually experiencing it for yourself?
I will try one more example. I was in the Marine Corps. I have the actual experience of being a Marine. There are military history buffs out there who know waay more history than me about every battle the Marines have ever been part of.
Now, according to this flawed logic, the military history buff knows what it is like to be a Marine. They get "IT" because they are scholarly experts on the subject.
No way. Totally invalid. Unless you have done it you cannot truly know it.
I do appreciate what you are saying, but I still feel how I feel. There is no way someone who has never been to a show can tell me what it felt like to see the Grateful Dead play live. The live experience portion of The Grateful Dead phenominon is incredibly important and valid to gaining a greater understanding of the band.
This post was modified by Skobud on 2013-01-21 13:53:22
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Poster:
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 Monte B Cowboy |
Date:
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January 21, 2013 07:13:08am |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
I have some very boring news and revelations for you, Althea, Tell, and many other 21st-century (lost) souls.
"Hanging out with the band" and
"attending shows" are virtually the same thing for most people. There are many shades of grey! This is "the shit"! This is the experience known as "IT"!
If the tapes are "IT" — and the rest is just bullshit, as many people here so expertly profess — then why are so many photos of GD getting a copyright © symbol put on them when people freely circulate their photos on internet sites? Why is it so important for them to use "© copyright" symbols on their photos, when in fact, the tapes —
"and only the tapes" — are all the shit?
I have never seen any taper, any tranferrer, any remasterer, or any matrixer ever put a "© copyright" symbol on their audio tapes of the band when they freely circulated them!! WtF??!!!!!!!! Who is trying to "copyright this shit"? Can you copyright "IT"? I do not consider myself to be "a collector".
Like the Marines, I say,
Semper Fi!. A good soundman should be loyal to the band, and visa-versa. There's a lot of loyalty around here, and I resemble that!
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Poster:
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Piles |
Date:
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January 22, 2013 12:22:18pm |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
"I find myself repeating the same things over and over here,"
Its not that anybody is having a difficult time understanding what you're saying, its more that you leave no room for anyone else to have an opinion that differs from yours.
I'm sure you don't mean to come across that way but it really reads like "agree with me and you're right" or "disagree with me and your wrong."
Nobody wants to have their opinion invalidated.
By the way, I really like the pics.
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Poster:
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Monte B Cowboy |
Date:
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January 21, 2013 10:06:37am |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
Re: The Marines get it; Semper Fi; history buffs;
GD's 1970 Wesleyan Univ tapes; the Kent State massacre; ROTC and my dad; and me becoming a taper and having a great lifestyle...
Never forget the Reserve Officers' Training Corps!
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Poster:
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wisconsindead |
Date:
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January 21, 2013 04:08:33pm |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
Sko,
I assume you are quite fond of early dead, of which you never saw. Do you feel your ability to understand "IT" is valid for the years prior to your first shows? From your description you shouldn't.
I totally understand that seeing a show live and then hearing the same thing on tape are two completely different experiences. However there is more objectivity to analyzing the music on tape than it is at the show. There may have been things at the show to make it better or worse, but the music is what the music is.
I think you agree with all of this but I'm trying to make sure.
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Poster:
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Skobud |
Date:
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January 21, 2013 04:36:29pm |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
Absolutely. My opinion is that music is a large part of the equation, but it is not the entire deal.
I dont understand the scene from the early seventies, but I did see them live. So specifically I suppose, the fact that I did go at some point provides me the life experience to have the insight to tell you the band is best experienced live.
We do agree dude - you know that. My point had nothing to do with understanding or appreciation. It has specifically to do with life experience which in turn creates value. Our values make us who we are. That's what I believe.
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Poster:
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wisconsindead |
Date:
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January 21, 2013 05:03:55pm |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
Right on. For me the music is the only part of the equation, I understand how you and others have something else, but its not possible for it to be a part of my perspective. I am grateful for being born when I was, I missed the trip but its pretty awesome having all the time access to essentially every dead concert recorded, basically non existent until 2004 when archive came around.
I have no bones about that. I believe that your experiences seeing the dead live had a big impact. I think it would be interesting to develop an essay about the development of becoming a dead head for someone like yourself or others fortunate enough to have seen in comparison to younger folk like me or clementine and our path into becoming a dead head.
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Poster:
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AltheaRose |
Date:
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January 21, 2013 09:42:45am |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
>Now, according to this flawed logic, the military history buff knows what it is like to be a Marine. They get "IT" because they are scholarly experts on the subject.
>No way. Totally invalid. Unless you have done it you cannot truly know it.
Just to clarify, I didn't say they'd "get" the whole shebang. If you haven't seen the elephant, as they said in the Civil War, you haven't seen the elephant.
My point was just that there are different elephants (different eras/"ITs"), and we have to use our intuition plus the communicative power of the music that we hear to latch onto the experience of different eras. Which is basically a version of what someone who never saw any show is doing.
It may come down to how much weight is put on the live experience/culture in reference to really "getting" the music. Certainly in terms of "getting" the culture/mood/tone etc, it's hard to do without having been there. But then, which "there" to "get" the "IT"? And is it possible to write a sentence like that without being hit over the head by an annoyed reader? :-)
Btw, interesting to see your show list! I didn't see any of those at all, and only one same year, even. I wonder how many people here were at the same shows?
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Poster:
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Skobud |
Date:
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January 22, 2013 05:24:03am |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
Yea, we migrated around the Buffalo area mostly, but in '92 I was actually in the Marine Corps when we spent the most time on the road. Here's a few shots from the lot in RFK '92...
The top shot was taken right before we walked in. I think you can tell I am experiencing "IT" right there. The middle shot is my partner in crime. You can also see my '79 Thunderbird in the shot, which I still miss today. I loved that car. What a great day we had. They said 120000 people showed that day. It was also the Casey Jones bustout show and Billy blasted this fucking locomotive airhorn at the end of Space that scared the livin shit outta everyone. It was awesome though, because they dropped right in after that with Casey. It was really something to be seen. I had never been so startled and ecstatic at the same time.
This post was modified by Skobud on 2013-01-22 13:24:03
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Poster:
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AltheaRose |
Date:
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January 22, 2013 10:05:14pm |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
LOL, Skobud, when you said you had to Experience What It's Like to Be a Marine to really "get" it, I pictured sand and barbed wire and Desert Storm gas masks or maybe at least wrecking your knee by playing football on an aircraft carrier like my brother. And here you meant ... SEEING THE DEAD!
Your Marine experience coincided with going to Dead shows? That's some deployment. Oo-rah.
:-)
I pretty much stuck around my area, too, though that was close enough to Buffalo that we'd have probably hit the same shows if it was the same era. I did go to one show in Buffalo. That was the furthest I'd traveled up to that point to see a show, so it felt pretty adventurous to drive off to the far remote netherlands of Buffalo. And btw, it was very ITish!
http://archive.org/details/gd81-09-26.sbd.miller.18110.sbeok.shnf
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Poster:
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Skobud |
Date:
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January 23, 2013 09:46:33am |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
Althea - It was insane. We totally bullshitted our leave papers and told no one in our squadron what we were doing except a couple close friends.
The funny part was that soo many people would come up to us and ask us why our hair was so short and a few thought we were cops. After about 5 days on the road though, we started seeing the same people in the same campgrounds and started caravaning and what not. One amazing thing to me is that we kept on seeing and hanging with the same people - even in these gigantic mob scenes. That worked very well in our favor becasue by the end we had to hustle to stay afloat.
Here's a few shots from the campground near Star Lake with some people we were on the road with. The bottom two were from the closest campground right near Star Lake. It was a state park so cops were everywhere. We actually stayed 3 nights there though. The top pick is from a farm we accidentally slept at - meaning we left the venue and drove as far as we could away until I had to sleep. I got off at some exit and we parked and crashed. The T-bird had gigantic bench seats both front and back and slept two extremely comfortably. We woke up and the view was so beautiful Pauly woke me up and snapped the pic the second I awoke.
As far as the actual Marine part of being a Marine, I was part of Desert Storm and I was deployed on two LHA's(amphibious assault ships), the Saigon and Wasp. I was avionics electrician attached to a Harrier squadron so we went wherever the infantry went. I served from 1989-1993 and did manage an honorable discharge.
This post was modified by Skobud on 2013-01-23 17:46:33
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Poster:
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AltheaRose |
Date:
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January 24, 2013 12:58:20am |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
Nice camping spots, although they're short on color. Maybe Marines just have an affinity for black and white. Gives it that old Iwo Jima flavor. I assume you're the buzzcut one in black-and-white tie dye, ready to make a charge to the front? (OK, the front by the Jerry side, but as long as people don't ask for details, you can honestly say you were headed to the front.)
I had a cousin in the Marines in Desert Storm. As far as I can tell, the main excitement involved calling his mom (my aunt) and then saying "Air raid! Gotta go!" Happened every time. I can't vouch for whether the actual air raids happened every time.
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Poster:
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Monte B Cowboy |
Date:
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January 22, 2013 12:47:34pm |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
I got my driver's license in 1968. My first rig was a 1959 Buick. It had the starter switch built into the accelerator pedal. Then I got a 1963 Chevy with a 4-speed transmission. Then I bought a beautiful gold, four-speed, 1967 Olds 442 from a friend. I loved my 442. But then I became a hippie!
In 1972 I downsized to a dinky little Pinto. It was my first new car. I drove the Pinto to Phoenix with a friend in summer '72 to get some ditch weed. I drove it to Nassau Coliseum, RFK Stadium, Watkins Glen, and Roosevelt Stadium in 1973. About a week after Roosevelt Stadium it was "totalled" by some nut-case who ran a stop sign and nearly killed me.
I converted to Cowboy and went to electronics school full time (carpooling). I started driving VW beetles in 1974. I drove VWs for about eight years because they were very economic and reliable. I gained maximum independence and mobility during this period by driving VWs. Driving VWs was my ticket to electronics school, my ticket to taping
Vassar Clements and Hillbilly Jazz and other shows, my ticket to becoming a soundman, my ticket to going camping all over the place, my ticket to working for Ampex, and my ticket to becoming a broadcast engineer.
my Ford Pinto made it to RFK Stadium, Watkins Glen, & Roosevelt Stadium
destroyed when struck by a drunk driver who nearly killed me in Aug 1973 |
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reflective"TRUCK IT" bumper stickers are displayed for Dead-heads
made in 1972 by my GD friend, "June 9 Taper-pointman Jay Delia" |
I'm still not sure "exactly" how many shows I attended (1973 only). I'm using Deadbase, my memory, and my tapes. Deadbase lists GD shows at Nassau Coliseum and The Spectrum for both March AND September 1973. I think my car was totalled on Aug 10. (my Pinto photo is dated Aug 11.) I would have carpooled with my GD friends for the Nassau shows on Sept 7 and 8 and The Spectrum shows on Sept 20 and 21.
For the record: In 1971, I purchased an 8-track recording system to make my own 8-track tape cartridges. I wanted to play hippie music from my albums in my car's tape player. Then I made 8-track tapes for lots of my hippie friends. I was "hooked on taping" from the very first moment.
In fall 1972 I met Jimmy Watson and a bunch of NJ deadheads. Jimmy shared his GD reel-to-reel tape collection with me. I started making 8-track copies of GD tapes. Everyone was playing them in their cars. We went to the Nassau Coliseum shows on March 15, 16, and 19. After that, we agreed it would be great if I started taping shows.
I looked around for the best portable tape recorders. Cassettes were replacing 8-track tapes. I wasn't interested in buying a reel-to-reel recorder. I purchased my portable Sony stereo cassette recorder and Sony ECM-99 stereo mic together. I purchased them at Sam Goody's store located on Route 17 in Paramus, NJ in April or May 1973. My first tape deck may not have been a model "TC 2850 SD" but it looked exactly like the one pictured below.
Sony TC 2850 SD portable stereo cassette recorder
Several model numbers evolved in Sony's tape deck products using the same chassis and case pictured above. For sure, my Sony tape deck did not have Chromium Dioxide tape bias, and it did not have Dolby noise reduction.
As I understand it, Jerry Moore's first time taping was Old And In The Way on June 8 at a bluegrass festival in Warrenton, VA.
June 9 was my first time taping, in Washington D.C. at RFK Stadium. Jay Delia gets credit for parting the crowd and leading me and my taping gear to the fob ground-zero point on June 9. Then I taped June 10. I refused to bring my taping gear to Watkins Glen. I had just taken delivery of my expensive new portable Nakamichi 550 tape deck.
I taped July 31 and Aug 1 using the Nak. There's no SBD from July 31. Jerry Moore's copy is complete. My copy is missing reel 2 (lost). My reel 3 tape was seized by Hell' Angels security as the show was ending. Jimmy Watson went backstage with the Hell's Angel dude and retrieved my tape from the GD. This tape circulates today.
I taped some of the Nassau and Spectrum shows in September, but only a couple of them. It's very sketchy from my memory. I recorded other material over these tapes. I'm sure I gave copies to my friends first. I do have one old Maxell UD C90 cassette and case that is labeled "The Spectrum, Sept 20", including an indexed setlist on it. I recorded over this tape in 1974 with a jazz LP. (so I know how ghostofpig feels about old and lost GD tapes)
This post was modified by Monte B Cowboy on 2013-01-22 20:47:34
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Poster:
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cosmicharIie |
Date:
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January 22, 2013 10:24:12am |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
I've always wondered, when you tape over a show, is there a very faint uhhh...something of it left on the tape?
Sorta like when people restore old paintings that were painted over - No? what about at a sub-atomic level - lol dumbass question??
This post was modified by cosmicharIie on 2013-01-22 18:24:12
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Poster:
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SomeDarkHollow |
Date:
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January 22, 2013 10:54:54am |
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Forum:
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GratefulDead
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Subject:
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Re: The Importance of Attending a Show: Part II |
Well said. I have to agree that getting one is not necessarily a requirement of getting the other. I know/knew quite a few people who found the concert going experience to be a negative (understand this was early 80's and on), saying that the "scene" was being trampled on by Blucher-clad frat boys projectile vomiting like it was an Olympic sport. Conversely there were folks who rarely if ever listened to tapes, saying that once you've seem 'em live tapes just didn't cut it.
It all boils down to the whole "to each his/her own" argument. What works for one doesn't have to work for the other.
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